What If We Stopped Trying to Always Have an Answer for People's Struggling?

 "I'm really struggling with anxiety right now. I'm not sure I can handle going to that tonight."

"You just need to give it to Jesus. The Bible tells us to cast our anxieties on Jesus. You just need to do that to be okay."

That conversation, or a version of it, is one I've had more times than I can count in my life - and always where I was the one struggling with anxiety.

"My anxiety has been really high lately. I'm struggling to keep it under control and I don't know what to do."

"You should read Philippians 4:6-7. Those are good verses about how to deal with anxiety."

When you finally get the courage to let someone know you're struggling, and you get a few verses of Scripture essentially thrown at you and then the other person walks away.

In both of these conversations, the other person means well. They want to care and support, but they don't know how.

Why?

Because, far too often in the church, we've turned a struggle with mental illness into a faith issue. We read the verses that talk about anxiety and assume they apply to every person who struggles the exact same way.

We all have times when we get caught up in worry, caught up in some anxious thoughts about something. And, we can easily assume that everyone who talks about having anxiety is talking about exactly this.

But, for some of us, it goes beyond that. It's not just some anxious thoughts; it becomes something that controls our lives. We often know that the thoughts in our heads are irrational, that they've gone so much further than someone else's would. But, that doesn't mean we can stop them.

So, these words to give it to Jesus or to read Scripture feel like they fall short. Because they do; they don't acknowledge the full picture.

In a book I was reading on this recently, the author wrote about it this way:

"The problem is, we often confuse mental health with spiritual health, but the two are not one and the same. If anything, mental health has more in common with physical health than it does with spiritual health because the mind-body connection is on that can't be denied by modern science. The brain is a vital organ of the body, and when the brain is sick, it impacts every other part of the body. Mental illness doesn't reflect a character issue. it reflects a chemistry issue." (Debra Fileta, Are You Really OK?, pg. 160)

Changing how we respond to this in the church is important. And, it is something that has improved significantly in recent years in the church. We've come a long way, but we still have a ways to go.

When I bring this up with people in conversation, I often get the question of what they should do instead.

What is helpful? What can you do when someone says they're struggling with anxiety?

I'll be honest, I struggled for a while with knowing how to answer this question. What did I really need from someone when I said that?

But, I've realized that I actually have examples in my life of exactly what I do need in those times. From friends who did what I needed without them knowing they were doing it or me knowing I needed them to.

What did they do?

They sat with me. They let me know they were there and didn't try to fix it. They just let me know I wasn't alone in the struggle.

They were present with me, exactly as I was in the moment.

I think we often feel like we have to have a great response when someone tells us they're struggling. But, in doing so, we easily make other people's challenges out to be something simple and easily solved, when they're often much more difficult.

But, what if we learned to sit with people. To be present. And not feel like we always had to have an answer.

I think that can be much more powerful and encouraging for people.

When it Feels Like Your Prayer Isn't Being Answered

 Have you ever prayed for God to move in a situation only to feel like God didn't answer?

Have you ever asked God to heal someone and it seems like that healing doesn't come?

I'd say we can probably all answer yes to these questions. And answering yes, sometimes makes it hard to be bold enough to ask for anything else in our prayers.

But, what if I told you that God has answered those prayers you've prayed. 

How do you react to that? Does it bring you relief? Or do you have a list of situations where you're sure God didn't answer come immediately to mind?

If you can, put those objections to the side for a few minutes. Ask yourself these questions:

When I prayed, did I ask for God to work His will or did I pray that He would do exactly what I wanted, the way I wanted Him to do it?

Did I look for God to answer only exactly the way I thought He would? Or did I ask for evidence of Him at work?

This doesn't mean we don't pray bold prayers. It doesn't mean we don't ask God to heal people. But, we also keep ourselves open to God answering in ways we didn't expect.

We have a discussion about this at a Bible study I'm part of recently. We'd all had times when we prayed for God to do something only He could do and it felt like He hadn't answered. But, when we really started talking about at least some of the those times, we could see that God did work. It just didn't look exactly like we thought it should.

So, what happens then? How do we reconcile this with what Scripture says?

Jesus tells us to ask and He says that He will respond.

Matthew 7:7-11 says:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!"

It would be easy to read these verses and decide that God just gives us what we ask for exactly how we want it. And, while we often wouldn't say it out loud, we think this way and it's what leads to the disappointment when we feel like our prayers aren't being answered.

But, when we make that assumption, we miss something about what Jesus is saying here - something important.

Jesus is saying that the gifts God gives are good - often better than we imagine.

But, when we've decided how the answer to our prayer should look, we may miss out on how God is answering it - in His much better way. God's much better way may look different than what we would consider an answer. And we can miss it if we're only looking for a specific answer.

A few years ago, in a podcast I was listening to, I heard someone say, "God always answers our prayers for healing." They paused here for effect... and I got annoyed. They went on to say, "Sometimes that healing comes on earth and sometimes it doesn't come until the person needing healing is in heaven." We don't like that idea. We want the healing now. We want the family member, friend, restored. We don't want to lose them. But, there's truth to that. Healing on earth may not look like we expect, but it will be God's better plan.

I've been wrestling with this a lot recently. I have a few prayers that I have been praying for a while - some for a year, some for years longer than that - and it doesn't seem like God is answering them. But, when I became intentional about looking for how God might be working in ways I didn't expect, I began to see things I didn't see before. I saw how God was working. I may not see the results I want, but I can trust God that He is working. And that gives me boldness to keep praying those prayers.

So, where do you need to let go of your picture of what an answer to your prayer should look like and instead look for the ways God might be moving instead?

When You Feel on the Outside

 It was another one of those moments when I felt like I didn't really belong. No one said it. No one was trying to make me feel that way. But, in that moment, it's what I felt.

I was sitting around the lunch room table with my coworkers for our usual Friday morning coffee and donuts. Conversation and laughter was plentiful. But, on that day I felt like I was sitting outside of the group, eavesdropping on a conversation I wasn't a part of. A conversation I couldn't be part of.

Most days, the fact that I'm single and have no kids doesn't matter. The reality that I'm the only one in the office without a spouse or kids isn't noticed or mentioned. And it didn't come up on this Friday either - at least not in anything any of my coworkers said.

But, for me, that was all I could of that day. As stories about things they'd done with their families or that their kids had done or said were shared, I felt completely outside of the conversation. I didn't have any of that to share. I'd spent my evenings for the last week sitting at home alone. And I sometimes secretly wondered if others got tired of all my contributions being about my niece.

The experience I had that morning left me thinking about things. I've written a lot in the last few years about singles and the church, about what the Bible actually says about singleness, and about friendship as a single person. But, I've never really written about what it looks like at work.

Maybe because, in some ways, my work environment is different from most others because I work for a Christian organization.

But, I think it's more because I was hoping that there was one place in my life where being single didn't impact things. Except, being single and not having kids is part of who I am regardless of the setting. 

So, what is my point? Conclusion? The reason why I wrote this?

It really has little to do with work. It's about the moments when you feel like you're on the outside, eavesdropping on a conversation. And how that can sometimes feel as a single person.

Even though we don't want to always be focusing on our differences in groups of various kinds. It's worth taking time to be aware that not everyone in the group has the same set of circumstances in life. Regardless of the similarities that brought you together, there are differences and it is helpful to be aware of that.

There are times when being sensitive to other's lives in conversation is important. Being aware gives us grace for the moments when someone feels like they're outside the conversation. Most of the time, there's no intention by anyone to make someone feel like they don't fit in the conversation. It happens without planning and no one is aware of it except for the person who feels that way.

Sometimes it may be something as simple as shifting the conversation for a while. When you notice someone has gone quiet or seems to be disengaging from the conversation, that could be a sign it's time to change the topic for a bit.

It comes down to making sure that everyone feels cared about. Taking the time to acknowledge all the people present - even the quiet ones.

That Friday morning conversation with my coworkers, changed for me when one of my coworkers asked a question about something they knew I was doing with my niece. In that simple question, I no longer felt like I was outside the conversation, or that no one there wanted to hear more about my niece. 

It really can be that simple. But, it means we have to be paying attention and be aware of what people are experiencing.